FightFAANG

Why free software, peer-to-peer messaging apps may be the key to addressing tech giants' unaccountable power, and how to get involved.

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A strategy for fighting the “FAANG” tech giants

Even while it turbocharges movements to fight unaccountable power, the Internet itself is becoming one. The tech press has a fun name for the companies driving this trend: FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google.)

To accompany the HOPE talk Zbay, Fighting FAANG, and the Quest for a Peer-To-Peer Messaging App That “Just Works”, this page proposes a strategy for fighting FAANG: building free software, peer-to-peer apps that, like predecessors Limewire and Bitcoin, are fully forkable, that is, forkable in ways that preserve the full content and user experience of the original.

The talk

Watch it here: https://vimeo.com/444081020

Sources:

Peer-to-peer messaging apps

Messaging seems like a uniquely promising place where peer-to-peer apps can fight FAANG, so the talk (and this page) focus on messaging apps. This list is not comprehensive, and if there is an approach to peer-to-peer messaging you’d like to see listed here, submit a pull request or contact us.

Relevant projects

About

FightFAANG is a project of Zbay founder Holmes Wilson, who previously co-founded the U.S.-based tech activism nonprofit Fight for the Future.

Acknowledgments

A hearty thanks to Guillaume Marceau and Lisa LaRochelle for their feedback on Zbay, this talk, and the ideas underlying both.